Technology & Business Intelligence News Round Up – October 2018

Let us help you keep up to date with the latest news and insights in the fast-paced world of business intelligence & big data. October 19-21 saw the NASA’s Internal Space Apps Challenge, an impressive 69 countries participated in this 48-hour hackathon. This challenge invites people, regardless of background and skill to tackle a challenge using robotics, data visualization, hardware, design and many other specialties. This year’s six challenge categories were; can you build, help others discover the Earth, Volcanoes, Icebergs and Asteroids, What the world needs now, An Icy glare and a universe of beauty and wonder. We look forward to hearing the results from the award winners.

October also saw an increase in the use of Artificial intelligence in the business intelligence industry. Tableau announced their new ‘Ask Data’ tool in their latest version of the Tableau Software 2019. This function was demonstrated in New Orleans, showing how this automation function works to prepare data. The aim of this AI tool is to use natural language to achieve statisticians work to analyze data. This can be spoken or typed-words. This function follows the launch of Microsoft’s PowerBI tool ‘Ask a question about your data’. Business Intelligence and data analytic tools are fast adopting AI technology to make their software accessible to all. Our team are excited to test out this new function to help support our clients in our Tableau training and Tableau consulting.

Late in the month we saw the launch of North’s Focal Smart Glasses, the company has just rebranded from Thalmic Labs. These are designed for everyday use; each pair has a tiny camera in one arm of the smart glasses that displays information from your phone. They also come with the essential Loop ring, wore on the user’s finger with a joy-stick mechanism that allows them to swipe their display. The glasses work by using retinal projection, allowing the images to shine on the back of the retina so everything will be seen in focus. You can view messages and reply, view calendars and maps and even order an Uber. The glasses have a speaker inside so commands can be given to Alexa. This is a reflection of the investment Amazon has place into the Focal Smart Glasses. To own a pair, you have to be fitted in the North Stores currently located in Brooklyn and Toronto. We have yet to see how these compare to their predecessors attempts at Smart glasses.

In other news, Intel have announced that they have achieved their diversity in the workforce goals two years early. They pledge to have a true representation the US population by 2020, including women, black, Latinx, Asian, LGBTQ+ and Native American workers. Intel have been focused on developing access to educational programs for those in underserved populations. Alongside, investment into internal programs to develop their staff and nature each staffs experience and authentic selves. This is something the company takes great pride in and continues to plan to put central to their working ethos. This is an area within the tech world that requires a great deal of improvement, let’s hope other companies in the industry take notice.

Join us next time as we round up on the business news that will interest you. To keep up to date follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

This entry was posted in Blog on November 2, 2018 by Exist Business Intelligence.